What do you do with your banty roosters?

[NapoleanGoose]

I have so many and I have no idea what to do with them!

They don't have enough meat on them to eat, it would be like eating a pigeon. And only a couple are at all show quality. I live 200 m from any cities and nobody in town wants them. They are crowing plenty and harassing my main banty rooster and his girls. None even sold at the tri-county fair this weekend. I have 11 crowing roosters and more that are still young!

What do people do with these buggers? I love them to death, but my mom says I can only keep 3 at the most, and I already have 2 breeding trios.

They are all super sweet. Little kids were holding them with no problems at the show. I have 1 EE, a barred rock banty, A white leghorn or OEG (?), Two cochins, and a polish. I: So its not as though they are just mean and not handleable. They even won decent awards.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is not much meat on them, but they still make good chicken broth. There are plenty of recipes on the internet, depending on how fancy you want to get.

For chickens too old to cook any other way, I process the chicken, saving all the normal parts plus feet, neck, and back. I even use the gizzard and heart. I put them in a crock pot filled with as much water as it will hold with celery, carrots, onions, peppercorns, and usually some herbs like parsley, basil, oregano, whatever I have available from my garden. I cook it on low for at least 12 hours and have gone as long as 18 hours for an old rooster. That was longer than necessary but man was he tender. When it is done, take the big chunks out, strain the liquid to get rid of more of the chunks (I use three or four layers of cheesecloth), let it settle, then skim the fat off. You can pick the meat off any of the parts you want and have the patience for. Even on a bantam, the breasts, legs and thighs are worth doing. You might even get something you consider worth while off the wings and back. This meat is great for tacos, pasta salad, casseroles, and who knows what else.

Instead of a crock pot, you can just cook them on the stove top in a stock pot. You want them to barely simmer, not come to a full boil. Slow cooking is important. Four hours is plenty to make a decent broth but, depending on the age of your roosters, you may want to go a little longer to make sure the meat is tender.

Check out some of those internet recipes to get an idea of how much chicken by weight you need for one of those recipes. They will be all about full-sized chickens, not bantans. Proportions are not rocket science. Anthing close will do.

 

[NapoleanGoose]

Thanks! That sounds good. Not sure if I can bring myself to eat the cochins, they are such sweethearts, but the OEG, Polish, EE and Barred Rock? Sure!

Thanks Ridgerunner for the tips!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

If little birds like quail & pigeons can be processed for eating, so can bantam chickens. I do mine along with the other standard-sized ones at around 20 weeks, they come out around a pound dressed. At that age they can be stuffed & roasted with good results as long as you cook them slowly and have a good amount of moisture around them in the pan.

I just learned how to caponize, I'm looking forward to seeing how much bigger I can get my caponized bantams to grow.

 

[SJensen]

Cooking them up when full grown sounds preferable to what I did... The photos are on my blog in the September 2009 archives , but to summarize...

As a novice with our first flock of "mixed chicks" from an auction, I ended up with four bantam roosters. When they showed their combs at around 8 weeks, I took them back to the auction to sell. Well, nobody wanted them! They sold for only 25 cents each and I felt horrible! I should have just raised them to full size and done the right thing myself.

 

[they'reHISchickens]

I advertised and found a gal where I work who takes the banties for free. Her hubby delivers them to her sink ready to cook I get rid of banty roos and she gets free chicken. Win Win.

 

[gryeyes]

What do I do with my banty roosters? Well, mostly I laugh at them. That's when I wasn't snatching them off the pullets during their teen-aged phase of mounting anything that moved.

Now they're just too cute. I have two Silver Sebrights who are a bit much, one bantam Buff Brahma (who's a sweetie), and a mottled bantam cochin. I kinda wanted ONE Silver Sebright, as I have one silver and one gold pullet. Actually, I didn't want ANY, but one would have been okay.

My dominant rooster is a large fowl/standard EE. He doesn't mind them at all, as long as they don't mount the girls in his presence. They've learned not to do that. And they've now learned not to do that in MY presence, either.

It is kinda noisy with 'em all. *sigh* I cannot process them.

 

[Urbanfarmerkc]

Cochins are cheap to raise to full size especially when ranging them so I grow them out and donate them. Mostly immigrants. No matter how you feel about the subject... everyone has to eat. It makes me feel good to know some poor child got a good meal out of a rooster.

I am in the process of raising and culling chickens to make my lines as pure as possible. I sell my culled hens but I have an Asian family who come over and process all my roosters. I then split them 50/50. They keep some themselves and donate the rest to poor families in their community. I always feel like I've done something right in the world when this happens.

Dave

 

[NapoleanGoose]

These are all good ideas and input, thanks!

Yeah, I love some of them and would totally keep them. But they are really driving my poor rooster barren. Three were trying to mount HIS girl yesterday, and he's only as tall as them and couldnt fight them off. Poor bby, I have far more sympathy for him then any other new rooster. He only has two or three girls that he really just adores, he never leaves their side, and for them to go after those girls? They are ruder then any others Ive had.


Great job, by the way, Urbanfarmerkc.

A little good goes a long way.